While Colombia has been making its way up the musical charts for several decades now, their star power is more impactful than ever. The birthplace of musical icons like Shakira and Juanes, Colombia has become synonymous with urban music, much in the same way that the American Midwest is the epicenter of country music, Spain of flamenco and Argentina of el tango.

In the early 2000s, people turned to Puerto Rico and Cuba to find the latest trends in reggaeton music, but Colombian producers and music stars managed to take over Latin music not only in the salsa genre but also through the beats of urban, reggaeton and romantic ballads.

J Balvin, Maluma, Karol G are just a few of the stars who broke into the international scene, but check out all these up-and-comers who are ready to take the world stage!

These three superstars are undoubtedly the faces of urban music and carry their Colombian pride wherever they go. Maluma’s love for Colombia goes so deep that his song with Madonna is named after his native town, Medellín, and the phrase “pa Colombia Parceros” is slowly becoming more and more recurring in all trending songs. But there are several more artists for which you should be keeping an eye on and adding to your playlists.

Sebastian Yatra and Camilo Echeverry's ballads have dominated all Spanish music charts, and their (romantic!) relationship with Tini Stoessel and Evaluna Montaner, respectively, have fans looking up to them everywhere they go. The brother duo of Manuel and Julian Turizo have a mix of ballads, urban beats and reggaeton songs that have been ringing at the most popular festivals, and musical producer Sky is the mastermind behind many of your latin faves. Sky first rose to fame when he teamed up with J Balvin during Balvin's early years and besides becoming great friends throughout the journey to fame, Sky "rompiendo el bajo" also became one of the most respected musical producers of urban music.